I. Field
The following description relates generally to communications systems, and more particularly to providing refined quality of service with respect to one or more traffic flows associated with a terminal.
II. Background
Communication networks, such as wireless communication networks, broadband networks, and any other suitable networks are utilized in connection with transferring data, wherein data can include word processing files, streaming video, multimedia files, voice data, and/or the like. When using such networks, some subscribers to the network may be provided with different quality of service (QoS) parameters than other subscribers. Pursuant to an example, a first individual may subscribe to a Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) network and be provided with first upload and download speeds, while a second individual subscribed to the DSL network may pay a different subscription rate than the first individual and be provided with different upload and download speeds. With still more specificity, the first subscriber may pay a first rate for 1 Megabyte/second download connection speed while the second subscriber may pay a second rate for 512 Kilobyte/second download connection speed.
Additionally, users of networks can be provided with different services. For instance, wireless network subscribers can purchase subscriptions that enable web-browsing, text message delivery and receipt, voice calls, data transmittal (e.g., video, pictures, sound clips, . . . ), gaming, etc. As the data types are different, it may be desirable to associate the different services with different QoS parameters (e.g., latency, bandwidth, . . . ). Conventionally, however, identical QoS treatment is provided to different services that are associated with a subscriber, which can result in suboptimal utilization of network resources as well as suboptimal performance with respect to services provided to the subscriber. Thus, identical QoS treatment is provided with respect to voice calls and web browsing, even though web traffic is typically associated with bursts of data while voice traffic tends to be steady (and should not be associated with large latency).